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Class 1A story lines

03/19/2013, 9:09pm CDT

By Star Tribune

Class 1A story lines

Class 1A story lines

1 Don’t underestimate lower-seeded teams

The quarterfinals pit four teams ranked in the top 10 in the final regular-season poll by Minnesota Basketball News against four teams that didn’t fall in that category. But three of the others — Walker-Hackensack-Akeley (No. 14), Lakeview Christian (No. 15) with the state’s career leading scorer in Anders Broman, and Mountain Lake (No. 18) were in the Top 20. The four teams in the Top 10 were No. 1 Maranatha, No. 3 Southwest Minnesota Christian, No. 4 Upsala and No. 7 Rushford-Peterson.

2Contrast in tourney history

Walker-Hackensack-Akeley (27-2), on its first trip to the state tournament, draws perennial power Southwest Minnesota Christian (27-1) in the opening round. The Eagles are making their eighth state tournament appearance, winning four consecutive titles from 1999-2002. They were the runner-up last year.

3 Last of the unbeatens

Upsala (30-0) is the only unbeaten team in the Class 1A field. The only other undefeated team is Austin (28-0) in Class 3A. The Cardinals return to the field of eight after a one-year hiatus. They are led by junior Christian Pekarek, the school’s career leading scorer with 1,333 points. He averages 23.6 points per game.